Isn't that a Boeing-Vertol LRV?

The car in the picture is indeed a Boeing-Vertol LRV. I'm not sure the car in the picture is the one for sale.

They were remarkably unreliable, especially from the builder of the Army's CH-47 Chinook and USMC CH-46 Phrog series of helicopters.

The article appears to be behind a paywall.

Phil Mulligan

It worked for me.

How di I attach a pdf?

This shows the article avoiding the paywall, but without an ad blocker it'll have a generous sprinkling of ads from the forwarding service (archive.is).

https://archive.is/rfV3d

SEPTA dodged a bullet here. The Boeing LRV's could not take a 35 foot radius curve on SEPTA's lines, some of which date to the 1850's as horsecars.

They got single unit Kawasaki cars which are still running. In fact, a couple were decorated for Valentine's Day.

Phil Mulligan

There was an article on the Boeing LRV's in the Locomotive & Railway Preservation magazine, the predecessor that inspired this website. Exactly how that was chosen a subject for L&RP I was never quite clear on but it was a very thorough and well done article.

Once I got done reading the article and the extensive set of defects and problems with the cars, I was amazed. Control systems, traction motors, brakes, doors, pantographs, climate control, possibly the trucks, I can't recall exact details so I may be off on one of two of those, but it was pretty much a list of all the systems on the cars. When I got done it felt like it said "Well, at least the seats didn't spontaneously ignite, but other than that, nothing worked!"

Two of those Boeing cars from SF made it across the Atlantic in 2002 when Manchester Metrolink were looking for a quick solution to capacity problems on the network.
Thankfully they saw the light before getting any more!
http://www.britishtramsonline.co.uk/news/?p=14556

I should note the two buyers of the Boeing LRV's, SF MUNI and Boston MBTA, are still operating PCC cars.

Phil Mulligan

Well, it could be the subject of an article because a few examples of SLRV made it into preservation.

Maybe they don't deserve to make it. Who wants to remember them?

Three of these cars made it to preservation, one at Oregon Electric in Brooks, OR, one at Western Railway Museum, Rio Vista Junction, CA, and one MBTA car at Seashore Trolley Museum, Kennebunkport, ME. SF MUNI originally saved one for their historic vehicle fleet, but later scraped it. The car used as a trucking company office in Richmond is the only one of these cars still in existence that is not in preservation that I know of.

San Francisco eventually got these cars running fairly well and was happy enough with them to buy more from Boston, where they had not faired as well. San Francisco was going to rebuild them and hired a consulting engineering firm to review this possibility . It was known these cars had a corrosion problem. Tokyo Car, maker of the car shell, had made some kind of error in finishing the cars. There is a layer of heavy rust between the filler layer and the steel sheeting. The consultant concluded, due to the extensive corrosion issue, that rebuilding these cars was not practical, and MUNI went shopping for new cars. Due to this corrosion issue, long term preservation of the remaining four cars questionable.

MUNI ended up with Breda cars, which turned out to be the least reliable LRVs in the US. (Data from APTA). It was the Breda cars that the MUNI could never master and finally gave up on, replacing them with Seaman cars made in Sacramento.

Rare 1970s Muni streetcar finds a new home (and you may be able to visit)
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/art ... 823359.php